User blog:Superior-chan/Surface Fighter Analysis - 1
Wandering around the internet, I've found a few misconceptions about certain types of TSFs. Most of them are minor but there are a few major ones I'd like to record down here for the sake of logkeeping. As things go on I might add to this to fill out the article. *'The Type-94 Shiranui's Jump Units have terrible engine power.' :: That honor belongs to the Type-97 Fubuki. It's a training unit, and as such it's meant to get rookies into the hang of things; when the 207th Training Unit had XM3 uploaded into their Type-97s they basically went wild with it, and could actually use overblown physical movements and instinctive reflexes to counter veteran familiarity and skill. :: Yuuya's frustration at being busted back to cadet gear is understandable, as he is, after all, a master of the F-15 Eagle like most US Army personnel, and was even one of the rare few who successfully tamed the F-22A EMD Phase during its hectic test runs at Nellis. :: In fact, going back at a short read through the JP wiki and IW, I cannot find a passage that says that the Shiranui has weaker Jump Unit power than a F-15 model. According to IW, the need for rapid acceleration and deceleration is one requirement of TSFs that are to operate on mainland Japan in order to deal with mountainous terrain and the danger of Laser strikes. Not a single mention of weaker Jump Units. *'The Type-94 Shiranui has poor handling.' :: From the prespective of someone used to the "boom and zoom" capabilities of US TSFs, probably right by all accounts. However, as mentioned before Japanese TSFs are built to operate on mountainous terrain and dominate in melee; their ultrasensitive handling comes from the expectations of having to skim the surfaces of mountains in case things go utterly pear-shaped on the mainland with the threat of lasers, or just for general handling. It basically makes it easier for skilled pilots to dodge without having to thrust-vector backwards and into something assuming that the current situation is chock-full of enemies, and as demonstrated by Takeru noting Sagiri's precise controls during the 12/5 Incident, sometimes what is needed is a nudge in the right direction and not pure engine power. :: While Yuuya is justified in his "INCOHERENT RAEG, PLS STAND BY" regarding the finicky Type-94-1C, the theory works the same way as a video game. Imagine being thrown into a shooter with the controls sensitivity set to maximum; that's probably what it's like to go from Eagle to Fubuki, and given enough time to practice one can get over it, or at least compensate for it in one way or another. Most would chalk it up to "lol Nippon strong bullshit" after the rather lackluster episode 5, but Yuuya stops complaining about sensitivity once at Kamchatka, and even shows that he has no problems taking on BETA in close quarters with a knife; something that would have been quite hard for him to pull off successfully were he to be presented the same situation back at Yukon earlier. *'The F-22A sucks in close combat.' :: Complete untruth. Close combat, on the Raptor's terms, entail going up to your face and being maneuverable enough to dance out of your arms' reach while shelling you full of holes at close to point-blank, which the survivors of the 12/5 Incident and the 8th Border War can attest to. What most people are referring to when they say the Raptor is bad in is melee combat, which, fairly speaking, the Raptor could also excel in were it not given a pair of folding knives to take on TSFs armed with heavy-duty swords and arm blades, and swing them at decapacitating speeds. :: In TSFiA, you see amazing shit like the Berkut and Shiranui Second going full aero-acrobatic in melee combat. I'm sure that if you can install leg blades on a Raptor and give it to the right pilots it'll be able to pull off the same feats, no questions asked. The reason why the Raptor doesn't get any flashier beyond super-high maneuverability is because it isn't outfitted to; you can kick a MiG-29OVT just for show, but at the end of the day the Raptor's going to suffer because its actuators aren't specced for CQC impacts, and more importantly, it doesn't have its own chainsaw blade. Lack of dedicated equipment is all that's keeping the Raptor where it is now. *'American TSFs and their pilots are terrible at anti-BETA combat.' :: Terrible is not a word I would use to describe them. This misconception probably came from the fact that not a single soul in the US Armed Forces had infiltrated and/or assaulted a Hive the hard way, where the sheer numbers of the BETA means that close range, long range, melee range, pilot skill, veterans, they all don't matter as long as you can keep killing them as they come. If you can't, well, good game, see you next time the universe reboots. :: US Army pilots are well-trained enough with high simulator hours (about the best anyone can get short of being flung head-first into live action) and the US Marine Corps and Navy pilots are about the hardest of the hardasses you can find on the planet; it takes guts to raid the BETA on their own territory, and it takes even more guts to go in Gun Sweeper style only given that they're often one of the first in the moment a beachhead is established. Granted, this is due to the absence of a requirement to stay and fight, but that's what a thinning operation is all about; go in, kill shit, and come out. EF-2000s and Rafales are only designed with blades tacked on because once they're stable with the thinning they're going to proceed on to the next phase: the recapture of Hives, which can be suppported by US TSFs without adding in additional design details. :: '''Next subjects: '''The Takemikazuchi is overengineered and costly compared to other 3rd-generations, Missile Combat, and Why Don't They Use X-class BETA as cover? Category:Blog posts